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Thanks to my friend Cynnara Tregarth, I watched an online presentation about lap-band surgery called EMMI. Got several of my questions answered, and I feel reassured.

The only thing of concern is that most doctors ask that you quit smoking. That's a big one for me. While I quit after my hysterectomy, as soon as my nerves got bad I lit up again. I'm willing to try again, and called a quit line. (1-877-UCANNOW) This won't be easy, but I can try. I don't qualify for the free NRT patches because I have ongoing clinical depression. (Darn) Well, I didn't have the patches last time, either. Fine. I've still set a quit date for Sept 6. I'll ask the doc for a prescription for the patches when I see him on the 8th.

Other than that, EMMI gave me quite a bit of info I needed to know, like what the after care will be about, how long I'll be on liquids and soft foods before I eat normally, and what foods will be unwise to eat like rice. I won't miss most of them.

An email conversation with Mary Winter has reminded me of my diet journey.

I recognize myself as a borderline bulimic. I can and have deliberately gone into the bathroom just to chuck up what I ate as a way to control myself and my diet. No justifications, no excuses. I am what I am. Ironically, my bulimia was never serious enough to actually cause me to lose more than twenty pounds, tops. That behavior continues to this day, upon occasion.

Unfortunately, for me Weight Watchers was a complete and total bust. The only thing lighter was my wallet after going to those $25 a week meetings and standing on the scale in front of God and everybody with no weight lost. The humiliation was more than I could stand, so I stopped going.

Believe it or not, the Richard Simmons Food Mover did work. In fact, it worked very well. Was it the fact that I had Dante doing the diet with me? I'm positive of that. He'd come home from work and we would immediately go into a cheerful game of one-up-man-shi…

We forgot to check the mail on Saturday, so this afternoon I went to the mailbox. Inside was the long-awaited referral from my insurance. The letter gives me permission to call the bariatric surgeon, and I'm trying to be grateful that he's on Beach Blvd instead of in Ocala or Gainesville. Beach Blvd is across the river from here, and I've not been to that area of town since I was a girl of 21. Mapquest says it's a mere ten miles from my place.

I'll call this another challenge-test of my resolve. Can I get in the car and drive all the way to a place I've never been in a town that is increasingly unfamiliar? This once was my hometown, but I swear it's morphed and changed into unrecognizable. Ironically, I grew up on that other side of town. My father lives there.

The doctor's office is only a few blocks from Baptist Medical Center where I was born, and where I spent most of my childhood while my maternal grandmother slowly wasted away from cancer. Perhaps t…